After yellow and white, pink gold is set to hit Indian jewellery retail stores by the end of this year.

The World Gold Council estimated India's gold consumption at 963.1 tonnes in 2010.

About 95 per cent of this quantity is sold in India as yellow gold and the rest in the form of white gold. Phe pink gold is a new concept, set to take off.

"It is just a matter of alloy. We are currently producing pink gold jewellery at Indian factories for the Russian market.

We retail pink gold and diamond studded jewellery in the Russian market through the recently acquired Gianti chains.

We want to also make pink gold jewellery available for Indian consumers by the end of the current year," said Mehul Choksi, chairman of Gitanjali Gems.

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Indian jewellery manufacturers and exporters plan to enter the Russian market as a natural expansion of trade.

Russian jewellery consumers prefer generally white and pink gold and diamond studded jewellery.

Yellow is not acceptable.

Consequently, Indian jewellery manufacturers will have to import pink gold if they want to enter the rapidly growing $30-billion Russian market, said Sanjay Kothari, vice chairman of the apex trade body, the Gems and Jewellery Export Promotion Council, which organised an Indo-Russia Jewellery Summit recently in Mumbai.

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Since the Russian market offers huge opportunity for Indian jewellers, with a combination of ancestral and modern designs in diamond-studded pink gold jewellery, local jewellers want to also try it out for the domestic market.

"This is our first interaction, in which we visited 15 jewellery making factories and selected six of them.

We want to deal initially with two jewellery exporters in a small quantity to begin with, to test the aspirational value of Indian designs in our market.

The first such order is expected to be passed on to Indian jewellers in a month," said an official with the jewellery arm of Crystal Retail Management, a member of the delegation. "If we succeed, we would expand our size of business."

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Russia is a new market for Indian jewellery exporters. Jewellery manufacturers and exporters use mainly small to mid-end diamond jewellery, crafted in 14-carat or 18-carat pink or white gold.

"We are working extensively to exploit opportunity in this market, isolated so far from the rest of the dwindling European economy," said Sohil Kothari, director of Fine Jewellery Manufacturing Ltd.

Meanwhile, innovation continues in the domestic bullion market.

Nakoda Bullion, a Mumbai-based trader, has introduced 1 kg of .999 silver chorsa (biscuit) for the first time.

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Till now, bullion dealers in India were trading in silver with chorsa weighing between 800g and 1,400g.

"Bullion stockists today buy in 30-kg lots and convert into biscuits in small denominations.

We have introduced a 1- kg chorsa for the first time for retail consumers, at minimum conversion charges," said Lalit Jagawat, proprietor of Nakoda Bullion and director of Bombay Bullion Association.

The company is targeting large companies for these sales.